Speaking strictly for myself, it’s not really about religion. I consider all religions equally invalid. Not one of them passes the sniff test. They all look equally silly to anyone who’s not a believer.

The real issues I’m interested in are skepticism and critical thinking. The idea that someone can take the writings of bronze age semi-savages whose technology hadn’t gotten as far as the button and button-hole over evidence obtained through rigorous modern scientific investigation is simply astonishing to me.

Anyone who’s passed a 7th grade General Science class should be familiar with the way the scientific method works. They should understand the definitions of “hypothesis” and “theory” and “peer review”. They should understand that a scientific theory requires compelling evidence. It’s not just some random idea.

I once had a boss who was a very intelligent guy. He was a master programmer who started a business in his garage and built it into a multi-million dollar international industry leader. He wrote a book that he believed revealed the secrets of the workings of the Universe. He couldn’t find anyone who would publish it, so he paid the bill himself. The book was universally panned by physicists. Even I could find huge holes in his “theories”. One day in the break room, he said, “Do you know how you can tell if something’s true? It just feels right!”

That guy might have been a great programmer and businessman, but he didn’t know the first thing about science.

The idea that you can tell what’s true by whether it feels right to you is what I’m here to argue against.
It bothers me when people will go to any lengths to support religious doctrine that has been proven wrong or for which there is zero evidence.
It bothers me when people say that the Bible is literally true, and then ignore the parts they don’t like.
It bothers me when people willfully misunderstand scientific theories and disregard objective evidence in favor of obvious mythology.

I don’t think for a second that I can change the mind of anyone who’s too far gone, too emotionally invested in their religion, to be capable of examining it in any rational way. But there’s always the chance that others, who are interested in religion and paid attention in science classes, will read the posts in this forum and understand what’s going on here.

Anyone who’s passed a 7th grade General Science class should be familiar with the way the scientific method works. They should understand the definitions of “hypothesis” and “theory” and “peer review”. They should understand that a scientific theory requires compelling evidence. It’s not just some random idea.

Religion is being pushed into the private sector now. By that I mean we are finally getting it out of our schools, and court houses, and these last rounds of elections give me hope that it's being pushed out of our politics and hopefully out of our legislation. And this is how it should be. Religion should be a personal matter and not a public one. It shouldn't be mandated, legislated or presented in public systems.

But the problem is that the religious take this as an attack. Even though no one is trying to stop them from believing and worshiping as they see fit... they feel entitled to push it on everyone else. And eliminating it from the public circle means others that disagree with them can live as they choose... religious people don't like this. They want to attempt to force everyone else to live by their ideals. For example "Abortion is wrong... not just for me... but for everyone else as well."

So what you have in a lot of areas... especially rural areas are teachers that are a little bitter so they do a half-arsed job of presenting scientific material because they feel that's the devil. And in many locations you have teachers that completely ignore the laws and conduct prayer in school anyway because "GAWD's Law Trumps Man's Law AMEN!" So you have a lot of kids that still aren't getting the education they deserve. The ideal is sort of "If we can't force them to be righteous... we'll rob them of critical thinking skills so they'll wind up believing anyway."

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So what you have in a lot of areas... especially rural areas are teachers that are a little bitter so they do a half-arsed job of presenting scientific material because they feel that's the devil. And in many locations you have teachers that completely ignore the laws and conduct prayer in school anyway because "GAWD's Law Trumps Man's Law AMEN!" So you have a lot of kids that still aren't getting the education they deserve. The ideal is sort of "If we can't force them to be righteous... we'll rob them of critical thinking skills so they'll wind up believing anyway."

Yeah, them thar stoopid ridnecks.

Regards,
Comrade Happyguy

__________________Proverbs 21:31 The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but victory is of the LORD.

Why would an atheist even give this forum a second thought?
There's nothing in a religious forum that would be of interest to an atheist.

The truth is this is a Christian bashing forum, dominated by atheists, and should be renamed.

I say rename this forum to the Atheist Issues forum, or maybe the Christian Bashing forum.

..

Lack of critical thinking skills lead to crazy stuff like birther theories. Really any number of conspiracy theories. That's toxic to a system where those people elect the leadership. If that spreads too far, yu end up with an idiocracy.

Lack of critical thinking skills lead to crazy stuff like birther theories. Really any number of conspiracy theories. That's toxic to a system where those people elect the leadership. If that spreads too far, yu end up with an idiocracy.

Critical thinking skills are crucial to a functional democracy.

That's why it matters.

Randy

Yep, you are going to save the republic by posting anti-Christian messages in the Glock Talk Religious Issues Forum. Christianity will be the death of us all.

Regards,
Comrade Happyguy

__________________Proverbs 21:31 The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but victory is of the LORD.

Lack of critical thinking skills lead to crazy stuff like birther theories. Really any number of conspiracy theories. That's toxic to a system where those people elect the leadership. If that spreads too far, yu end up with an idiocracy.

Critical thinking skills are crucial to a functional democracy.

That's why it matters.

Randy

Can you dumb that down for me?
I have no idea what you're trying to say?

Speaking strictly for myself, it’s not really about religion. I consider all religions equally invalid. Not one of them passes the sniff test. They all look equally silly to anyone who’s not a believer.

The real issues I’m interested in are skepticism and critical thinking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Japle

Did you even read the OP?

Yes, I did.

Why is it posted in a Religious Issues forum?
What's religious about it?

Plenty of Christians have no problem separating fact from fiction. Catholics don't subscribe to the 6,000 year old Earth nonsense for instance.

You're free to believe what you want. You're not free from being ridiculed for what you believe.

I see the same denial of reality behind the crazy fundamentalist views and those crazy enough to believe the birther theories, and any number of other crazy conspiracy theories. All stem from being so caught up in what you want to believe you deny reality in order to do so. That's not healthy.

And when they try to foist that malarkey in science classes, its well beyond just unhealthy and into the ridiculous.

When they put alchemy in chemistry class and numerology in math class, come talk to me about putting creationism in science classes. Maybe I'll have given up at that point and willing to concede defeat.

I see the same denial of reality behind the crazy fundamentalist views and those crazy enough to believe the birther theories, and any number of other crazy conspiracy theories. All stem from being so caught up in what you want to believe you deny reality in order to do so. That's not healthy.

Randy

Hate to break it to you Randy, but you don't have a monopoly on reality.

Regards,
Comrade Happyguy

__________________Proverbs 21:31 The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but victory is of the LORD.